Starting on Monday, I will be in my 10th week of my FSM rotation of my dietetic internship. This past week has been so fun and exciting; definitely one of my favorite parts of the internship (besides teaching).
October 14-18th was National School Lunch Week. I decided to run my nutrition promotion event (part of one of my rotation assignments) during that week. My event theme was NSLW: Fun with Fruits and Vegetables! I highlighted the featured vegetables and fruits on the menu. Since my facility was in between RDs and my new preceptor was super busy, I planned most of the event on my own. I spent a lot of time coordinating with the elementary school I would running my event in, talking to staff members, getting the PR coordinator involved, holding meetings, and creating materials/prizes for the kids. I started planning my event about 1 month in advance. I created bookmarks for the students (laminated them as well), brochures to send home to the parents, flyers for my table, and recipe cards for teachers and support staff. I also made posters highlighting the different fruits and vegetables with fun facts and nutrition information. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I just hung posters at the elementary school. Tuesday and Thursday I was at the school running different contests (guess the bean content of the jar and trivia questions) and giving out stickers/bookmarks for students who had a fruit or a vegetable on their tray.
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One of the posters I created for the lunchroom.
One student told me that I should be an artist :) |
About a week prior to the event, I discovered that the office I was working in had costumes in their closet; a pea pod and a banana. I was way too excited about wearing them! I also found out that the press would be coming on Thursday to interview me and take pictures!
My first day, Tuesday, of my event went so well! It was a bit crazy because the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade lunches overlapped. I felt like I was running around crazy (in a pea pod costume) trying to get student guesses for my bean costume. I also ran a lucky tray, in which 1-2 students from each lunch had a sticker on the bottom of their trays indicating they won a prize. Even with all of the craziness, the event went better than I could have hoped. The kids got so involved! One of my favorite parts was reading what the kids wrote on their guessing slips for the bean jar. One first grader wrote for a guess, "200, or 198." Other students wrote the #1 followed by as many zeros as would fill the line. (Total bean count for the jar was 16,438).
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| Day 1 Table Set-Up |
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| Pea Pod Costume! |
Thursday ran a lot smoother than Tuesday did. Since all of the kids had guessed the beans on Tuesday, I spent time taking pictures, handing out prizes, and asking trivia questions. The kids were so excited about the costumes, contests, and prizes. One student said, "You should wear that banana costume all the time, so I always know where you are." Another student said, "We should do stuff like this each week. Put it on the agenda." A lot of the students asked when I was coming back and what costume I would be wearing. It was so exciting to see the kids smiling and having a good time, all in the name of healthy eating!
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| Day 2 Table Set-Up |
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| Picture Time! |
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| Banana Costume! |
While I was running around the cafeteria in my various costumes, teachers were saying things like, "Wow you must have drawn the short end of the stick," "Oh, the joys of being an intern." That was exactly the opposite of what I was thinking! I was more than excited to be prancing around in different costumes. I chose to wear the costumes (in place of a colored shirt). Seeing the kids' faces get excited was priceless to me. I wished they had more costumes for me to wear :)
After all my hard work, the story was put into 2 different newspapers! It was really exciting to have such good publicity for not only the school district, but also my internship program!
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